Director - Seth Breedlove (The Mothman of Point Pleasant, Mark of the Bell Witch)
Starring - Amy Davies (Mark of the Bell Witch, Voldemort: Origins of the Heir) and Lyle Blackburn (The Bray Road Beast, Terror in the Skies)
Release Date - 2021
Genre - Horror/Documentary
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection)
Rating (out of 5):
I've been familiar with filmmaker Seth Breedlove and his work for several years now after attending the premier of his documentary The Mothman of Point Pleasant at the historic Lowe Hotel some years back. When I first met him I didn't know any filmmakers that were making documentaries about cryptids and the paranormal so it was a welcomed friendship. Since then he has released numerous films on various subjects such as the Braxton County Monster, Momo, various sasquatch sightings, and UFOs. Sometime earlier this year Seth announced a new documentary investigating the southern werewolf known as a rougarou. I'm not familiar with this one aside from the episodes of Supernatural that dealt with the subject so I was excited to see it. I ordered the blu sometime back and decided to finally spin it before the year was up.
The film takes an in depth look at the rougarou which is prominent in Louisiana folklore. We learn about the connection between the indigenous tribes and the impact it has had in pop culture before moving into those that have witnessed strange sightings around the areas suspected to be the rougarou.
As I stated earlier, Supernatural was the only time I had heard mention of the rougarou prior to Seth's film so I was looking forward to learning about a cryptid/supernatural creature that I was unfamiliar with. I thoroughly enjoyed the history behind the creature along with the ties to pop culture and so on. The interviews in this one is split into those giving us the backstory and history of the creature before moving on to eye witness testimonies. I was more interested in the historical aspect over the interviews. My degree is in history education so I always find it fascinating to learn more about creatures and folklore especially when they are something I am not familiar with. In fact, I wish this Small Town Monsters' doc. went a little further into this aspect than it did. With that being said, the interviews from the eye witness accounts and so forth were a little underwhelming. I'm fully convinced that they believe what they saw but these were not as captivating as the historical aspect. The topics discussed follows the same formula as other STM docs. They appear in chronological order going from the historic aspect, the connections to the indigenous tribes and the locals of the area then, before moving into the modern sightings. This formula works very well especially for a documentary with this type of subject matter. Finally, the editing and transitioning in this one is great. Seth and STM has released some of the most professional and well put together documentaries that I have seen in recent years. However, the CGI rougarou in several scenes in the re-enactments were very goofy looking. They reminded me a lot of the monster movies from the late 90s SyFy originals. Overall, Skinwalker is a fantastic doc about a subject that I was not familiar with. It's extremely informative and entertaining. Fans of paranormal, cryptids, and folklore should really check it out.
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